


Little Lamb

by Lady Dae (Daephraelle)



Series: The Vulnerable Man [1]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Internal Monologue, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-28
Updated: 2009-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-21 22:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/230638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daephraelle/pseuds/Lady%20Dae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rimmer pores over the past after the events of <em>Terrorform.  </em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Lamb

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Terrorform_ and _Thanks For the Memory_.

It still aches, when I think about it.I know I can’t remember her, or any of the moments that you pasted into my memory but the pain of that black box recording still spears through my chest during the quieter moments.It hurts now more than ever, because as deeply smeggy as it was for you to hand me your soggy seconds, at least you did it out of a sense of pity, of empathy.You felt for me, for the complete lack of love or affection in my life.So you gave me a good memory, a warm memory of your own.God, it was only a few years ago but it feels like decades.We were different people then.You were gentler.I don’t think I’ve changed much, maybe that’s the problem.Maybe after so many years with my persistent negativity and lack of charm washing over you, you lost that tenuous connection to me.But of course that didn’t matter, because you found someone else to fix.Kryten, floating amongst the splintered remains of your space bike.You repaired him, booted him up and spent the next three years trying to better him, to make _him_ happy.Old Arnie J. didn’t get a look in anymore.I was so badly damaged there was no point, was there?Too many years of put downs and bullying and deep, torturous self-loathing.But Kryten, he could be taught to lie, to be noble.To have hopes and dreams of his own, to overcome the gaps in his programming.You made him strive to be better, even if it was a painful stretch.

But my self-loathing ah, that beast was never meant to be conquered.You drove it back, down there on the planet.Just for a moment, you made me hope again.Hope that you saw something worthy in me, something worth saving.And just when I thought I was being foolish, you sat down next to me and told me that you cared about me, you really did.All the bad times just melted away.It was Lise all over again.You were there to bolster me, to show me that someone did love me, _me_!

Then the bottom fell out of my world all over again.The fragile filigree cocoon that was once again taking form around me was smashed into so many shards of biting metal.Because you didn’t love me, none of you did.The Cat and Kryten I could understand, Kryten loves only you and the Cat has only ever loved himself.It was the look on your face when you answered my hesitant question, desperately seeking reassurance.That look was nothing I ever want to see again.It was incredulous, disparaging.The very idea that you could love someone like me, or feel any reactive affection for my terrible, self-inflicted loneliness.Then you turned back to the console with a wry smile and started hitting those smegging buttons to take us home.

Whatever affection you had for me had long ago vanished.That sense of camaraderie we had when it was only you and me sharing a room in the depths of space – the Cat an infrequent visitor - had dissipated when you found Kryten and decided we should start exploring space in the ‘bug.Then there were two other people you could talk to, laugh with, people who wouldn’t take your Rastabilly Skank albums and force-feed them through the shredder.So I was left – the fourth wheel on the tricycle.And you stopped caring about whether I was ok or whether my entire life’s worth of failures were beginning to consume the tiny little bit of self-worth I had left.Well, it’s well and truly gone now.I sit here, three million years into deep space with the slobbiest, laziest man whom I have ever met and even he regards me with distaste.

Do you remember that song, Lister?The one I sang that night when I was drunk and I foolishly let the walls around my heart drop?Well it’s not my song anymore; it’s no one’s song.Let it spiral away into the oblivion shared by the human race and its pointless creations.There’s no one left to share it with.You told me that with the look on your face.Maybe I could have been good with someone to watch over me but even I don’t want that job any more.

So hit the retros, get us back to the Dwarf.I’ll keep going, keep on with my caustic observations and my rigid, ordered life.But I won’t hope, I won’t feel.Lise Yates was nothing but the memory of a memory.It was you who made me feel loved.

  



End file.
